Dungeons Are Bad Business

From the familiar comfort of his barkbody, Kai led Dandelion through the labyrinth of so-called “abandoned” Westown. The bonsai treant didn’t think that description fit in the slightest: the dilapidated buildings were teeming with life. It just wasn’t the kind normally respected by people. Rodents, birds, insects, weeds, flowers, and even spiders made their home amidst the rubble, living in fallen equilibrium and doing their best to thrive.

With each step, the [Verdant Builder] saw opportunities for growth and change. There were alleys that could be cleared and turned into gardens, sidewalks that could be replaced with flower beds, and lots of space for young trees to flourish. Sure, the worst looking buildings here and there might have to be demolished for such things to happen, but even the biggest forests needed a cleansing fire once in a while, even if Kai hated to admit it. Give and take were two sides of the same Green Spirit coin, to borrow one of his favorite people phrases. Old trees fell at the end of their lives and provided shelter and nourishment to new plants and trees, such was the way of the world. The old industrial part of Oar’s Crest would eventually give way to a lush and flourishing Verdant Construction. He just had to make it happen.

With Vee’s help, of course. The dungeon was most certainly the fertilizer for Kai’s ambitions, and the treant knew that he’d need the [Dungeon Master]’s help more and more in the weeks, months, and years to come.

“A moment, please,” Dandelion said suddenly. Its voice was still somewhat cold and stilted, but like the first blooms of the fiend’s namesakes brought new color to fields of grass during early spring, Kai could hear new energies – new life – popping up in its inflection. There was a lightness in his apprentice’s voice that hadn’t been there before, a gentleness that was warm like sun-drenched grass on a summer’s day.

Make no mistake: Dandelion was changing with every day, becoming more with every passing hour and blossoming into something different than the fiend that’d first sought to become Kai’s apprentice. The treant was glad for that, but also somewhat wistful. There’d been something charming about that creature; an honesty and a simplicity in Dandelion’s words and actions that were perfectly in tune with nature itself. With complexity came, well, complexity, and Kai wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Worse, he wasn’t sure of his ability to remain a good teacher if Dandelion continued to grow the way it had been. There were simply too many things about too many things that the bonsai treant didn’t know. He was too young and lacked the wisdom that he’d taken for granted in the grove elders. How could he teach more than the basics of his craft when he’d barely internalized them himself?

Oblivious to the pseudo-existential crises plaguing Kai, Dandelion knelt down next to a small, drooping buttercup next to what had once been a [Weapon Smith]’s shop – if the rusted metal sign above the door was of a sword like Kai thought it was – and brought its hand onto the flower’s stem. There was a moment of stillness, and then a trickle of the fiend’s Green Spirit snaked out of Dandelion’s hand and into the flower’s petals. A moment later, the buttercup brightened and straightened, rejuvenated and refreshed through the fiend’s intervention. Of all the skills Kai had taught it, [Refresh] was by far its best. It looked at its handiwork for a moment, pleased with its efforts, and then stood up with a nod.

“Thank you, master.”

“Of course,” Kai said. “A nice bit of work there. I’m sure that buttercup will look quite nice in a few days.”

The two continued on until they reached the wall marking the edge of Westown, and while climbing up was somewhat tricker than Kai expected it to be, it was less of a hassle than smuggling Dandelion through the city and getting through the gate back to the orchards outside the city would have been.

Finding themselves in the vast space of overgrown, neglected fields where the grass and weeds reached up the barkbody’s waist, Kai and Dandelion started the long march back to the grove.

The emberberry trees that marked the outside of the orchards were still on the cusp of blooming, their branches adorned with tiny red flowers. A warm spicy scent filled the air, and Green Spirit was everywhere, pulsing steadily in a serenade that Kai’s sap couldn’t help but joyfully sing to join.

Naturally, the grove wasn’t entirely peaceful. There were pests aplenty, and more than once Kai and Dandelion were beset by beasts that saw in the pair an easy meal. It felt good to smack some oversized squirrels around again, and Kai was pleased to see that in spite of its growing softness Dandelion was still perfectly capable of defending itself. He was also amused by the fact that several of the fiend’s moves were various wrestling holds and tackles it’d perfected keeping the dungeon’s skeletons in check back in the menagerie. It was obvious that the poor squirrels hadn’t ever faced such tactics before, and the pair moved through the orchards without any real trouble.

When they reached a large clearing, a whistling sound from the branches above got their attention. Before Kai or Dandelion could react, a big dark shape fell down to the ground in front of them and landed hard. Leaves and twigs scattered, flying in every direction.

Kai let out a shout. It was an older barkbody, with roughly hewn black plates and burning blue eyes. It held a knotted staff in its left hand, and Kai felt a friendly pulse of Green Spirit coming from the treant inside.

“It’s good to see you both looking so well, Kai Ginficus and apprentice Dandelion,” a hard, knotted female voice from inside the barkbody said. “Elder Palmatum has been expecting you and asked me to help you both make your way to the grove. I’m Shinra Quercas, by the way.”

Try as he might, Kai couldn’t place the speaker’s name with a treant’s face. That meant it was probably one of the older treants of the grove, a member of that strata that was wedged painfully between saplings and elders. He frowned inside his barkbody. It was unusual for such treants to be so far from the heart of the orchard; their skills were required to be there on a near-permanent basis due to the danger associated with the ivyoak nests that continuously popped up. What was this treant doing here?

As if she could read Kai’s thoughts, Shinra treant lifted one of her barkbody’s arms. Or rather, tried to lift one of her barkbody’s arms. It didn’t move much though, on account of the binding vines in its shoulder and elbow that allowed such a thing being little more than tattered ribbons of brown and green. Worse, the plates near the barkbody’s hand were all chewed up, splintered and broken in ways Kai hadn’t ever really seen before.

“Got sloppy near a nest and paid for it,” Shinra said by way of explanation. “Need to get repairs done at the grove so I can get back to the heart to help out with the rest of pollentide.”

Dandelion spoke up. “Pollentide?”

Oh. Right. Kai felt a little silly at having forgotten about pollentide. He’d been so focused on everything with the menagerie and Dandelion that it’d completely slipped his mind.

Turning to his apprentice, Kai said, “Pollentide is something that happens every early spring. All the creatures inside the orchards are coming into their full strength after being Snowsapped all winter, and everything is in bloom. There’s a lot of wild Green Spirit in the air and the soil, and the ivyoaks start making trouble by trying to expand their nests.”

“Understood,” Dandelion said. “Almost. What are ivyoaks?”

“They’re a type of blight beast,” Shinra said. “Twisted chimeras. Bits of slugs, snakes, possums, spiders, wolves and even treants stitched together with brambles and fueled by Green Spirit. They spread a thick, poisonous sap in their wake, and during pollentide they get real aggressive about trying to expand their nests.”

“Sounds terrifying,” Dandelion said. “Any risk to the city?”

“Of course not,” the older treant said, a twinge of heat entering her voice. “We always keep them in check. They’re a bit of a pain during pollentide, but for the rest of the year they’re extremely predictable, if still dangerous.”

None of them spoke for a moment after that, until Shinra suggested that they continue onto the grove. Even with only one fully functional barkbody arm, the older treant made fast work of the pests and hazards that tried to block their way.

With pollentide in full swing, the grove was a bustling hotbed of activity. Its usual tranquility was gone, replaced by a constant flurry of bonsai treants running back and forth. The sounds of hard work filled the air, and Kai wondered how his home for so many years could feel so much like a foreign place after only a season or so away. Sure, it’d been a long winter, but Kai felt as if it’d been years since he’d last set foot in the grove. His sap sang a mournful song after he exited his barkbody, and the lingering gazes of his peers made his branches itch. He found himself looking forward to this errand being done, so that he could return to the menagerie as quickly as possible.

“Okay, master?”

Kai looked over at Dandelion, and saw that there was genuine concern in the fiend’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” he said, smiling to reassure his apprentice. “Just thinking. Are you okay?”

“Strange pressure here. Unfamiliar Green Spirit. Not threatening or unfriendly, but not welcoming either.”

That gave Kai a moment’s pause. He knew that the elders took steps to protect the grove from unwanted intruders; they were similar in principle if not in tactics to his warding hedges. He wondered if his unease was perhaps related to these efforts. Maybe the fact that he’d set down roots in Oar’s Crest and had changed his class to [Menagerie Caretaker] meant that he was for all intents and purposes an outsider and subject to the adverse effects of the elder’s influence.

Unfortunately, pondering that question didn’t produce much in the way of results. There were simply too many things that he didn’t know, and worrying about hypotheticals was wasted work: it would yield no fruit.

Instead, Kai spent the next few hours pointing to various bits of greenery around the grove and explaining their function and history to his apprentice until they were summoned to meet with elder Palmatum.

A notification popped up as Kai stood.

[Patience +1]

He dismissed it, and led the fiend deeper into the grove.

Dandelion had decided that it didn’t like this place. The air was too sweet, the dirt too rich. It missed the familiar comfort of the menagerie and the duties to which it’d grown accustomed. The monsters in the orchards hadn’t been particularly dangerous, but there was a ferality to them that the fiend didn’t like. They’d reminded Dandelion too much of what it’d once been: a creature driven by furious instinct, incapable of delivering anything but pain and misery to any souls unfortunate enough to cross its path.

The soft, squishy core of Green Spirit inside the fiend’s chest fluttered, and Dandelion paused until the shakiness in its vision brought about by such activity faded away. Master said that such things were normal, but the fiend wasn’t so sure. It certainly didn’t feel normal, and Dandelion hoped that this Elder Palmatum would have some sort of technique or wisdom to make the flutters stop happening.

Master led the way down a long twisted path flanked by skinny witchwood tree trunks and mushrooms of every color. The pressure in the air grew heavier, and Dandelion’s steps slowed down. Even master seemed to struggle to keep moving forward, his branches bending ever so slightly beneath an invisible weight.

Thankfully, when they reached a small circle of ground beneath a thick bit of canopy, the pressure eased and Dandelion found that it could walk normally once again.

An old, gnarled treant sat in the center of the circle, smiling at their approach.

“‘Tis good to see you again, young Kai,” the treant said, his sonorous voice ringing with Green Spirit. “My apologies for your discomfort in being here.”

“It’s nothing to be concerned about,” master said. “We are grateful that you were willing to take the time to meet with us, especially during pollentide.”

Elder Palmatum smiled. “Time waits for nobody, though we should probably refrain from tarrying overlong. I’m sure you both have work to return to, as do I. Young Dandelion, let me see your hand.”

Dandelion looked over at Kai, who shook his branches approvingly, and then slowly extended its hand toward the older treant.

Elder Palmatum held it for a moment, closing his eyes and sighing heavily. A sensation like a vine creeping up a trellis flickered through Dandelion’s mind, probing the fiend’s Green Spirit as if examining it for any irregularities.

“Green Spirit can take many forms,” the old treant said quietly as his examination progressed. “And that singular specific shape will influence the skills and strength of the holder as they continue to grow. Even the System recognizes these distinctions, offering certain classes only to those with a compatible Green Spirit shape. Broadly speaking, we think of them in three primary ways.The first is the tree, which consolidates its powers over a long life, growing denser with every year and providing shelter and other things to the world around the holder. While probably the most potent of the three, tree shape Green Spirit is limited in how it can move, and rapidly loses its power if it strays too far from its roots until it reestablishes itself. That process can take decades or longer.”

The elder smiled. “As you might imagine, this shape is extremely popular with my kind because we are uniquely aligned with it.”

Dandelion nodded, returning the treant’s smile with a small one of its own.

“The second common shape for Green Spirit is the flower, which brings great beauty and joy to a wider range of places than the tree is capable of reaching. However, this bounty comes at the expense of a fleeting nature. The bonds that tie it to the seasons are tight and constricting, causing its strength to fluctuate to a degree that many find uncomfortable.

“Lastly, there is the shape of the weed, which spreads rapidly and widely, though its power – like the roots of its namesake – is shallow compared to the other two. Its blessings are humble and straightforward, but are useful in bringing life to dead places and it is resilient against the seasons.”

“Which one is best?” Dandelion asked. It wasn’t sure that it understood the nuances of what the old treant was saying. Frankly, it didn’t think those descriptions had been of much use.

“That depends on you,” Elder Palmatum said. “We treants have rites that will let you experience different possibilities of each shape, but the ultimate choice is yours. You have to decide what you want.”

Something about that declaration resonated with the fiend’s heart, and Dandelion shivered.

“Mine?”

“Indeed. Now, close your eyes and we will begin.”

The fiend did as instructed, but when the elder’s probing climbed toward Dandelion’s mind, it was stopped hard by a pulse of something born from the bond that tied Dandelion to its true Master. The pulse was followed by the distant – and possibly imagined – roar of a great beast coming from the direction of the city.

The distinctive sound of master’s branches swaying prompted Dandelion to open its eyes. To the fiend’s horror, everything it saw was tinted blue for a moment, though the natural colors of the world returned quickly enough.

Elder Palmatum let out a chuckle and shook his branches. “Oho, what an interesting and unexpected authority! The [Seer] will be most pleased by that development. We’ll begin the rite through a different method. Dandelion, I’ll need your other hand.”

The fiend held out its other hand. Elder Palmatum whispered, and six green motes of light emerged from the soil. They landed on Dandelion’s hands, disappearing after a moment and filling the fiend with a comforting warmth.

Voices inside Dandelion’s head started to whisper. They spoke of shade on sunny days, sweet fruit hanging from branches, pleasant perfumes in the air, joy brought to hearts, pops of green amidst seas of gray, and paving the way for new life. Some of their words were accompanied by images, and Dandelion rocked back and forth at the realm of possibilities presented to it while its Green Spirit quaked and shivered.

The fiend lost all sense of time, seeing itself with a thousand different classes – [Herbalist], [Gardener], [Orchardist] were but a few – or using some number of ten thousand different skills. There were a million different roots beneath the surface of the world, and they all led to different places. The fiend wasn’t sure how to navigate through their twisting paths, and panicked at the thought of never finding its way to where it was supposed to be.

Rarely, Elder Palmatum’s voice cut through the chaos, easing Dandelion’s anxiety with calm words of wisdom.

“There is no right or wrong answer, young fiend. Growth is a response to one’s environment, a force that can be shaped and managed. Don’t fight it, embrace it instead.”

On and on the process went, for a full day and a full night. Dandelion drifted in and out its trance, its thoughts branching out into spaces it’d never previously imagined.

What exactly did it want? What shape did it want its Green Spirit to take? What would be the most useful to master? Or to Master? Dandelion didn’t think the rigid nature of the tree suited it, but was torn equally between the beautiful ephemerality of the flower shape and the enduring strength of the weed shape.

Was there some way to combine those two? Dandelion thought that it might like to do so, if possible, and sure enough it saw a root that offered such a path.

Reaching out, the fiend took hold of the option presented, and felt its Green Spirit stretching into a new shape into something that was like both weed and flower, but neither one in truth.

[Congratulations! You are now Blossoming!]

[Your ability to commune with plants and other living creatures is now more powerful!]

[In time, you will unlock new classes and skills!]

[Green Spirit +2]

Dandelion opened its eyes and read the notifications. It didn’t really know what they meant, but it felt satisfied all the same. After dismissing them, the fiend consulted its soul’s mirror and took a closer look at its core of Green Spirit.

It looked a lot like a sunflower.

Kai and Dandelion's Character Sheets:

Kai Ginficus

Primary Class: Menagerie Caretaker (Vee Vales), Level 20

Secondary Class: Barkbody Pilot (Pachi Palmatum), Level 15

Tertiary Class: Verdant Builder(Self), Level 10

Might: 20

Wit: 7

Faith: 15

Green Spirit: 35

Adventurousness: 11

Guts: 11

Citizenship: 5

Mentoring: 9

Patience: 9 (+1)

Dandelion

Blossoming

Primary Class: Menagerie Caretaker’s Apprentice (Kai Ginficus), Level 15

Secondary Class: Gardener (Kai Ginficus), Level 7

Might: 13

Wit: 10

Faith: 8

Endurance: 11

Green Spirit: 11 (+2)

Bashfulness: 5

Citizenship (Bound - Vee Vales): 1